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Matt Cloud's avatar

"But Woodward’s tale of him setting up a meeting with Felt in early November via the flower pot, when Felt disclosed the “suspicious” erasure, is an obvious lie. Felt had retired from the FBI approximately six months before their purported meeting in early November, and he was living in Virginia."

Easily explained: It was Sally Quinn who watched the apartment balcony. She and Bradlee were by then already effectively living together in Dupont Circle just around the corner. Woodward would put out the flag, and she would spot it and inform Bradlee, who would then get word eventually to Deep Throat, i.e. Moynihan, then (1972, going to India as Ambassador in February '73) mostly in Cambridge.

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Matt Cloud's avatar

You haven't got it. Moynihan was Deep Throat. Butterfield told Moynihan about the taping system. Butterfield (or Leonard Garment, more likely) told Moynihan about the 18-1/2 minute gap, the possible deliberate erasures. Moynihan told Woodward in November 1973, when he was in DC for about a week, before returning to India.

https://www.nixonfoundation.org/artifact/tape-923-conversation-5-923-005a/

Tape 923, Conversation 5 (923-005a)

Date: May 19, 1973

Time: Unknown between 11:02 am and 12:47 pm

Location: Oval Office

"Watergate

-President’s schedule

-Helms

-Haig’s recommendation

-Helms

-Conversation with Haig

-Helms’s testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee

-Equipment

-National Security Council [NSC] meeting

-Conversation with President concerning CIA involvement

-Helms’s possible resignation

-Daniel P. (“Pat”) Moynihan

Moynihan

-Letter to Haig"

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